by Paul Kropp
“I don’t suppose they belong to—”
“Mother, you can stop the interrogation,” Taylor told her as she came down the circular staircase. Then Taylor turned to me. “Now I’m ready.”
I believe my jaw dropped. If my jaw did not drop, it should have dropped. The girl in front of me was the most magnificent female I had ever seen in real life, a fantasy made real. There is something about a little black dress, a bit of makeup and a pair of high heels that can transform a very pretty girl into every man’s fantasy. In only a couple of minutes, while I was entertaining one snarling dog and one inquisitive mother, Taylor had transformed herself into a princess.
“You like the outfit?” she asked.
“I’m speechless,” I said, with no exaggeration.
At this point, I was really at a loss. I was vaguely aware of a suspicious mother staring at me, a snarling dog ready to do damage to my body parts, and the wetness of my pants. However, I was mostly focussed on Taylor, her beauty, her perfume, her essence. I was transported.
“Please, take the flower. Its beauty is nothing compared to yours.” I said that! I actually said that! I delivered a line of sheer poetry, a line of snow-job genius, and I did it with a straight face. I was instantly and hopelessly in love!
Taylor took the flower and handed it to her mother. “So let’s go,” she said.
We made it outside. For a second, I thought Ahmed might salute me as we came to the car. But he politely nodded and opened the door.
Taylor smiled and slid inside. I slid in beside her and quickly adjusted my blazer to cover the wet spot on my pants. Then Taylor and I both started to giggle.
“This is like being inside a Turkish bordello,” she said.
I didn’t admit my general lack of knowledge of Turkey or bordellos. I merely sighed. “You are so lovely.”
“And you’re over the top,” she replied brightly. “What do you do for something like a prom?”
I thought for a second, and then it came to me: a brilliant moment of inspiration. “A helicopter!” I said. “I’ll take you to your prom in a helicopter.”
14
A Little More Bubbly?
WITH THE TWO of us snuggling in the back of the limousine, I noisily uncorked the bottle of champagne and poured a glass for each of us. Taylor and I toasted life and stretch limos, while I mentally thanked Jeremy for this stroke of genius.
“Flowers, champagne, a limousine…Alan, I feel like I’m in a movie,” Taylor said.
“For me, every minute with you is like a dream.” I said that, too! I couldn’t believe the lines that were coming out of my mouth.
She giggled; I giggled; we clinked glasses and giggled some more. She cuddled up beside me and I idly put my arm around her shoulders. Her little black dress had ridden up her legs, which were now pressed against mine.
Oh, I could do well tonight, I told myself.
But I stayed under control. Right there, right against me, were those fabulous legs. My hands were itching. My heart was beating. But I remembered Maggie’s slap to the face and did nothing. Be attentive, charming, funny and polite; be patient; do not grope or manhandle; do not push the Ultimate Goal; be patient, patient, patient. I mentally reviewed all of Maggie’s instructions. This time, I told myself, I would get it right.
We arrived at Rayburn’s with a flourish and were taken to a romantic table in the corner. Sun was still streaming in the garden windows, and the light made Taylor’s skin glow golden and perfect. I wanted to reach out and stroke her perfect cheek, but no, I kept my Roman hands under control.
“Good evening, Ms. Hoskin,” said the waiter as he came up. Obviously Taylor was no stranger here. “Could I offer you a cocktail, sir,” he said to me.
“Well, uh, yes,” I replied. I couldn’t believe it—this waiter wasn’t even going to ask for ID! Now I just had to think of a cocktail. What do people always ask for in movies? “A martini, please,” I said.
“Shaken or stirred? Poured or straight up? Olive or lemon?”
“Uh, the usual,” I said.
The waiter made a face as if I had just uttered a swear word in some language known to him and unknown to me. Then he leaned lower and spoke directly to me. “If I could just see some confirmation of your age, sir.”
“Oh, sure,” I replied, reaching into my wallet for the fake ID I had bought from Jeremy’s cousin. The kid on the card looked only vaguely like me, but I figured the waiter was old enough that he couldn’t see the difference without some reading glasses.
“Yes, thank you,” he said, and then straightened up. “The usual, Ms. Hoskin?”
Taylor nodded and the waiter scurried off.
Taylor looked at me, a little embarrassed. “They know I’m too young to drink so I end up with these weird non-alcoholic things,” she said. “But when you order the wine, if you get an extra glass…”
Order the wine, yes, indeed. I had never in my life ordered wine, but sooner or later I’d have to start. Tonight was the night. It was a night for new beginnings.
The drinks arrived along with the menus and the wine list. The menus were in oversized leather binders, something like the big books that teachers read in grade one, and the wine list was as long as the last novel I read. I opened both, stopping only to catch my breath when I saw the prices.
A bowl of soup cost my entire weekly allowance; a steak was the price of a small used car! Suddenly the $100 in my wallet seemed like a trifling amount.
“Why don’t we skip appetizers?” I suggested.
“Oh, you have to try the beef carpaccio here,” Taylor said. “Daddy says it’s wonderful.”
I looked at the menu—$18 for beef carpaccio. What is carpaccio, some kind of Italian parkade? Okay, if I have a cheap main course and Taylor pays half, this will work. But what if she doesn’t pay half? Do restaurants still let you do dishes to pay off the bill?
I gulped.
“Have you selected the wine, sir?” asked the waiter.
“Wine, yes…the wine,” I said. “Your list is so, uh, like, big.”
“If I could recommend, sir, the Montcharet de Clairenbon.”
Taylor jumped in. “That’s Daddy’s favourite.”
I tried to look authoritative. “Well, if it’s good enough for Dr. Hoskin, I’m sure it’s good enough for us. I mean me. But maybe you could bring an extra glass.”
“Certainly, sir,” the waiter replied. “I’m sure the wine will be to your liking.”
I’m surprised at the number of interruptions that come up when you’re supposed to be having a romantic dinner. Somebody always seems to come by to fill a glass, or add a knife, or take away a spoon. Still, it was a lovely meal. The beef carpaccio was soft as butter, my cheap pasta was very nice, and Dr. Hoskin’s favourite wine was a bit bitter at first—in fact, it made my mouth wrinkle up as if I’d been sucking a lemon—but it grew on me as the meal progressed.
Taylor and I talked about everything. I learned about her bratty younger sister, her insufferable older brother, her obnoxious mother and her distinguished father—the one person she seemed to idolize. I found out that she disliked the following items: greasy pizza, pretentious guys, loud TV commercials, expensive gold jewellery, her history teacher, golf, her thin blonde hair, Jerry Seinfeld and nasal hair. Please do not ask how all of these came up in conversation. She did like some things: school, the little Mazda she would get next year, Friends reruns, pink soccer cleats and intelligent guys. I assumed that last item included me.
I doubt that Taylor learned that much about me since I was so busy listening to her. It was Maggie’s rule number one: be attentive. Besides, I was reluctant to go on at any length about my father the professor and my mother the judge for fear that I’d say something totally ridiculous. I figured out one very important thing that night: an effective lie must be carefully planned and researched, which is why it’s so easy to get caught on the quick ones that just slip right out.
I would report at greater length ab
out the conversation if there had not been such interesting nonverbal communication beneath the table. At one point, Taylor slipped off her shoe and began to rub her toe over my right foot. I decided to slip off my shoe and do the same to hers, and all this led to a little foot intermingling below the table while the two of us chatted above the table. In old movies, this is referred to as “footsie,” and Maggie had said nothing about it in her rules of “do not grope, manhandle or squeeze,” so I figured it was okay. In fact, it can actually become exciting after a while—so much so that I felt a quick stirring just where Taylor’s dog had moistened my pants.
Obviously, everything was going very well. We sipped the wine, looked into each other’s eyes and played footsie beneath the table. Mission control: we are locked on target, I said to myself.
Finally the bill came. The footsie stopped and any stirrings of lust were eliminated by the total: $154, with a tip to come. Dr. Hoskin’s wine, all by itself, was $48; add on the carpaccio, a couple of drinks, my pasta and Taylor’s salmon, one dessert and a couple of coffees—well, the total would have bought a lot of Big Macs.
Taylor opened her purse and handed me sixty dollars. “Will this cover my share?” she asked. And I could have said, honestly, that another twenty would be more like it, but I ran the numbers through my brain and figured that my hundred, with my dad’s ten and Taylor’s sixty would just cover it, with the tip. Nothing to spare—but why would I need any more?
So we stumbled out of Rayburn’s poor but happy, and probably a little drunk.
I haven’t mentioned that I don’t drink very much. I wish I could say this was a matter of principle, but mostly it has to do with poverty. Sometimes Jeremy and I will grab a beer from his fridge; sometimes my family will let me have a drink at a party; sometimes my aunt Betty will serve me wine when we all go to visit at her place. But I’m not a big drinker. I am underage, slightly, and never really felt the urge to sit around and toss back a two-four while watching a ball game. That’s just not me.
So when I drink, it hits me pretty hard. A beer or a glass of wine makes me happy, two make me a bit silly, three make me a bit giddy and four…well, I’d never had four drinks before.
Maybe that’s why I was having a little trouble with my feet as we left the restaurant—something about placing them on the pavement seemed to require special concentration.
“Do you feel okay?” Taylor asked. Her blue eyes looked at me with wonderful, loving consideration.
“Oh, great,” I said, “never better. Just a little dizzy, is all. Must have gotten up too fast.”
Taylor smiled and put her arm around me, helping me over the last few steps. I put my arm around her, helping myself to a wonderful touch of her waist, and then kept my arm right where it was. She was so warm, so soft, so wonderful.
Ahmed pulled up in the limo. In a second, he had popped around to open the rear passenger door for us.
“And was the restaurant to your liking?” he asked.
“Very lickable,” I replied. “Most lickable meal I’ve ever licked.”
This struck me as remarkably funny, perhaps the wittiest line I had ever delivered in my entire life. That Ahmed didn’t get it, and Taylor didn’t even giggle, did not stop my appreciation of my own humour.
“Lickable, get it?” I said.
Taylor slid into the car and I bounced in beside her. There was an almost imperceptible change in her at this point. She made no effort to take my hand or restore physical contact or otherwise re-establish the wonderful romance that had been developing in the restaurant.
I knew better than to be aggressive. Do not grope, manhandle or squeeze, Maggie had written. Do not push the Ultimate Goal. But here we were, in the back of a limo, after a fine, romantic dinner. Surely this was not a time for things to cool down; surely it was time for me to do something.
“A little more champagne, Taylor?” I asked. “Why let it go to waste?”
“I think I’ve had enough,” she replied, “but you go ahead.”
“Well, don’t mind if I do,” I said. Then I filled my glass with the dregs of the champagne, took a large sip and returned my eyes to Taylor.
That is when I first became aware of the problem. Taylor’s eyes, in addition to being beautiful, are ordinarily on a straight line. But when I looked at them now, her left eye seemed to be raised up just a little. Then her nose seemed to be moving, just slightly, over towards the left. I blinked. Now both eyes and her nose were moving, and her mouth too, like a real-life painting by Picasso.
“Alan, are you all right?” Taylor asked. “You look pale.”
She reached out and touched my face with a most wonderful, gentle hand. I reached up to take her hand in mine, then kissed it very gently. I looked up again and her face was still moving, but not as much as before.
“Oh, I’m good,” I said. “It’s just been such a wonderful evening.”
“For me, too,” she said, cuddling against me.
There we sat, in the back of the limousine, cheek to cheek, hand in hand. It was one of those marvellous, romantic moments—or it should have been a marvellous, romantic moment except for a minor problem.
Ahmed was driving the limousine along a windy, undulating road. The twists and turns pushed Taylor and me together—a very nice thing, I should add—but the rises and falls in the road led to a certain wooziness. I felt as if I was in an ocean liner rolling on the high seas, and my stomach, filled with remnants of carpaccio, pasta and wine, began to roll with those seas.
This would have been okay, I supposed, if only everything else had stood still. But now the doorhandles and liquor cabinet and armrest buttons all began dancing up and down. My throat felt very dry, so I finished the last bit of champagne.
“Alan, are you…?”
Taylor did not have a chance to finish, because I was drunk.
I was sick-to-my-stomach drunk. As that last bit of champagne fizzed down to my stomach, it set off an explosion. I had never felt such a bomb go off in my gut ever before in my life, but the blast was enormous and instantaneous. In less than a second, everything—everything!—began rushing upward from my stomach, burning its way into my mouth.
I lurched forward, looking desperately for some place to aim the explosion that was about to come from my mouth. I tried to open the door but couldn’t find the handle; I tried to open the window but couldn’t find the button. I looked at Taylor’s purse as the spew hit the back of my throat. No! I told myself. Not that!
But my solution was right in front of me—the shiny silver urn that held our champagne. I threw the empty bottle to the floor, bent forward and deposited my entire evening—my entire life—in a dozen convulsive heaves.
When I dared to look over, I saw that Taylor had pressed herself against the door and opened the window for air. She was certainly not looking my way, but must have felt my eyes on her.
Not really looking at me, she said, “Could you ask your driver to take me home?”
So there we were at the end of the night. Taylor’s light blonde hair blowing in the breeze, her eyes off somewhere in the distance, her mind thinking God knows what. And there was I, holding a wine cooler full of vomit, my pants stained by dog drool, my dad’s blazer dribbled with wine. It was not a picture for Rembrandt or Picasso.
After Taylor left, Ahmed came around to my side of the limo and looked into the wine cooler.
“The food was not to your liking,” he said, taking the cooler and dumping the contents on the Hoskins’ lawn.
“Not to my liking, no,” I grunted.
He drove quickly through the streets to get to my house. By now, the dizziness was gone and the embarrassment was sinking in. I felt miserable. No, miserable is too mild a word. I felt a misery unknown to me previously in this life, a desolation so deep and so terrible that I wondered if I should ask Ahmed to simply roll the limo over my body and put an end to it all.
I did not get a chance to ask him.
We were outside my house and I
stumbled from the limo. Ahmed was holding the wine cooler in his arms and I wondered, for a moment, if he wanted me to wash it out.
“You were great, Ahmed,” I told him.
Ahmed beamed at me. “In that case, sir, I would very much like to receive my fifty dollars. Cash or credit card will be fine.”
15
No More Wallowing
“SO WHAT ARE YOU gonna do?” Jeremy asked. We were back at Starbucks, drinking coffee, staring at the dripping rain outside.
“Wallow,” I said.
“What’s that?” Jeremy asked, pricking up his ears.
“Wallow in despair,” I explained, “like pigs wallow in mud. I’m going to try to pretend I love despair, that I enjoy being shunned by everyone in school, that I don’t mind making a fool of myself in front of the girl of my dreams. All thanks to you.”
“Me?” He shrugged. His cappuccino left a white moustache on his upper lip. Very uncool, I thought.
“Yeah. You’re the guy who always says ‘Go for it.’ You’re the guy who put the champagne in the limo.”
“C’mon, Al,” he whined. “You’re being ungrateful.”
I sighed. “I don’t even know why I’m sitting here having a coffee with you.”
“Maybe because you don’t have any other friends,” he suggested.
I groaned. “You have to rub that in, don’t you?”
“No charge,” he replied. “All I told you to do is exactly what I do. The champagne would have worked like a charm if you hadn’t—”
I cut him off with a nasty look.
“Well, it works with the St. Hilda’s girls. I mean, they spread like butter.”
“Would you stop talking like that,” I whispered. “Things are bad enough, but if anybody heard you…”
In fact, there were very few people who could have heard him. The school crowd had moved over to a new Starbucks, on 13th Street, so this one had a more adult population. Like most adults, they were generally indifferent to teenagers.
The only exception to this adult population was an Asian girl sitting at a table by the windows. She was reading a book as she sipped what looked to be a frappuccino. The girl was wearing a sweatsuit, but otherwise looked mighty nice.